Buy Paranormal State: Poison Spring Collector's Edition

About This Game

The Paranormal Research team from the hit A&E TV show "Paranormal State" is called in to investigate a terrifying supernatural event at Poison Spring State Park, historical site to a grisly Civil War battle. Join the team as their newest member, solve this ghostly case, and reunite two wayward spirits in this eerie Adventure game!

Casual level of difficulty for the Hidden Object Puzzles, but also a good story for Veteran Mystery game fans meaning you can be 93.14% sure you will enjoy this game. Lots of different puzzles to keep things interesting. This game is based on an A&E show, players are a member of a college club called the Paranormal Research Society, or as the cool kids say PRS. In Poison Spring all kinds of creepy stuff happen, and the game is even scary as well at parts! One of the characters Ryan Buell just looks creepy, the characters in cinematics look expressionless which also makes it eerie. Dont let steelhands get away with his master plan to decieve this group of pesky kids, they are supposed to be in college but they all look way to old and one of them looks 90 so not sure what that is about.

Feels pretty short, after beating the game is a bonus game where you return to the dreaded Poison Spring to solve yet another mystery. The puzzles are very well put together, the hidden object parts really fit and dont look like a garage sale vomited stuff all over, each part has a sound, or most do making it feel in depth. Be careful behind some objects are ghosts! Lots of those weird ghost hunting gadgets from the audio device to the camera and a digital signature thing is in the game making you feel all x filey.

*If game is blinking, right click the exe and set it to disable DPI scaling... Problem solved :DTurn out the lights, use only a candle while playing for maximum chills and thrills!Rating: 10/10 Value: $7.99

This game is not just a HOG (hidden object game), it also has the elements of a point and click adventure. This is my first time playing a HOG that is both a HOG and a Point and Click adventure game, and let me tell you, it is a lot of fun. When I played other HOGs I got bored of doing nothing but hidden object scenes non-stop, and I often would not even finish the game. This game, I see myself finishing and maybe even coming back to play again a 2nd time. The game is that much fun and it is never boring. In between doing hidden objects, you got plenty of mini-games and puzzles to solve. I highly recommend that nobody who plays this game, use the skip button on any mini-game. The fun of this game is solving the mini-games and puzzles. If you skip them, then you are losing out on a lot of the fun.

One of the things that makes this game great is that the hidden object scenes "fit". In other HOG games, the hidden object scenes would not fit. Like a cemetery scene that was so cluttered that it didn't even look like a real cemetery. In this game, every hidden object scene feels like it is part of the world. I would say the scenes fit into the world about 95% of the way in this game, and that is pretty good. Every HOG game has a lot of hidden objects that don't belong in a certain place, so no scene will fit 100% but fitting about 95% is pretty good.

One of the things that makes this game both unique and great, is that there are interactive objects in the hidden object scenes. For example, you may have to cut something open. So you first need to find the right item that is able to cut the thing open, and then you need to do it. I ran into some interesting interactive objects during my time playing so far, such as the spider web. I don't want to give away any spoilers so I won't say anymore about the spider web. But I will say, it makes this a unique game in having these interactive objects. Having them in the game also makes it more interesting and fun.

Another thing that makes this game great, is you feel motivated to continue playing the game until you finish it. Other HOG games, I got bored with, but not with this game. This game, I feel motivated to play. I just started playing the game today, and I played for almost 3 hours in one day. I will finish the game in the next few days. What keeps me motivated is that every time you finish a hidden object scene, you get rewarded with an object that you can use in the point and click adventure part of the game. Also as I said earlier in the review, it is not nothing but hidden object scenes, so you have variety in this game. The variety keeps me interested and motivated. I plan to solve every mini-game and puzzle in the game, without using a walkthrough. Even if that means taking a little longer then other people to finish the game. I will get more fun out of the game that way.

I highly recommend this game for people who enjoy HOGs, especially if you like a HOG with point and click adventure elements in it.

I don't usually like hidden object games, because the gameplay tends to be really shallow, but this effort wasn't too bad. Now whilst I may not be particularly savvy when it comes this particular subset of puzzle genre, it seems to offer slightly more in the gameplay department than others I've played due mainly to puzzles working on a multi-tiered basis; moving items will reveal a previously inaccessible item behind it for instance.

This version comes with quite a few extras like wallpapers, artwork, team profiles, achievements and a trailer, though the biggest bonus is in the extra adventure game you may access after having completed the main quest.

The horror tag must have been added by people who are very easily scared. This is not a horror themed game at all. It's mildly spooky at best. The game itself is an adventure game with quite frustrating and random hidden object scenes and some odd puzzles thrown in. The hidden object scenes require a ridiculous amount of interaction to reveal some of the objects. This adds to the adventure character of the game, but it certainly feels like a missed point in a hidden object scene. The game might have benefited from a traditional point and click approach.

Also some of the puzzles feel really forced (match barely identifiable symbol to match their 'yummy' partner for instance) and rather take away from the game. The story isn't really good and neither is the animation (almost none anyway) or the voice acting. Granted the voice acting isn't terrible either, but it fails to deliver any suspense. The graphics and sounds otherwise are good.

I'd say for half the price this game isn't a bad way to spend 2-3 hours. There's a pretty decent game in there that got messed up by bad design mistakes. Still worth a play for a couple of bucks.

I'm not very knowledgable in the area of casual hidden object games, but I thought this was a fun timewaster. It plays a lot like a classic adventure game. I enjoyed its cute and cheesy horror elements.

The graphics of this HOG game are ok, it is an collectors edition with additional contents and the sound is atmospheric, only at the end the sound can be quite unnerving.

The reason for the disappointment was in fact, that the game crashed several times after solving either a HOG-scene or using the thermal-camera in the game. It happened about eight times during the run of the game. But that might also have something to do with a defect Steam-Overlay or some update crashes.

I played it through, the story was ok, even if a bit too cheesy. The hidden object scenes were on a quite easy level, even on expert mode. The riddles were also quite simple, but also entertaining. This game is a casual game, so I didn't expect more about that. The game was rewarding during it's course of run. I would say that a younger audience might have a lot of fun with this game ... and it might even surprise older players. It plays like an adventure game often, so you don't have the feeling you are stuck in a "HOG-Scene after HOG-Scene" nightmare.

The important question is, can I recomend this game? I would say yes, even though there are minor issues, for example the price is a tad too high for a HOG game with about four to six hours of playtime. But if you get a 50 %, 66 % or even a 90 % coupon, or if this game is cheap in a bundle or in a sale, you might think about adding this game to your library. Another issues is the repeated crashing on one of my machines, without any real reason behind this weird behaviour - but since this game has a good step for step save game, you aren't forced to replay too much of the content you already solved (in fact, it seemed that the crashs happened after the checkpoint was saved - so you could in my case just end the task and restart right were you were kicked out of the story). Another thing was the sound at the end of the story, it wore down my normaly quite strong nerves with this pulsing, crunchy sound in the background - just enervating, not horror just plain enervating - like horse flies in the summer after you had a long dive in the pool and lie down on your chair to savour your well earned glass of scotch...

I got this game off a bundle, and if you did, too, you might want to actually play it.

The game is mostly a collection of puzzles, many of the "hidden object" type (some objects in the scenes require actions to uncover them), some are logical, and some are adventure-style inventory puzzles. You can skip every one if you want, or get a hint on the hidden object ones, and there are 3 levels of hinting that you can set as the game difficulty. Also, in this edition the journal contains a complete "strategy guide" which is a step-by-step walkthrough. The collection is held together by a story taking place on a number of pre-drawn screens (with next to no animation) and competent voice-acting. The story and gameplay is mostly linear, and you can check the map to see where you need to be to progress. You'll be traveling back and forth a lot as new puzzles might be unlocked for you later. There is a short bonus chapter tacked on that is interesting not so much for its three puzzles, but rather for another take on the same scenes you saw in the main game.

I found it a diverse collection of puzzles married to a casual adventure; granted, it's not exceptional, but for its budget, it is well executed, and if you don't skip too often, should keep you pleasantly occupied for a few hours.

Not going to lie - this is not exactly the second coming of Baldur's Gate - but for what it is - a cheesy as anything puzzle game distraction for a few hours it didn't outstay it's welcome - the puzzles were never frustrating and the thing didn't crash or bug out at any point. Oddly enjoyable experience to be honest.

Solid mix of HiddenObject and adventure game elements. Story is a rather cliche ghost story and nothing special, but the environments are well done and unlike most other HOGs you aren't soloing through the story, but have a gang of other paranormal investigators around, which gives it a bit of a unique feel.

Only real problem I had with the game was the ending, which came in the form of a three second cutscene and felt just way to short. Even the epilogue bonus content suffered from the same problem.

Never seen or even heard of the TV show it's based on.

I did ran into a dead-end/perma-crash issue early in the game, but a restart fixed that and I didn't have any other problems.

Picked this game up in a bundle and didn't realize it was a hidden object game til I played it. Honestly, this game was bad even for a hidden object game. They tried really hard to make the characters photorealistic, but then they added touches like blinking. Because there's no character motion but the blink, the effect makes it land squarely in the uncanny valley and really wigged me out. Maybe this game would be fun if you're a fan of the show *and* you really like hidden object games.

Oh, I so wish there was a "meh" button. I don't really recommend or not recommend it... read below why if you wish.

Yet another hidden object game... one with seemingly slightly higher production values than some (that's not saying much). Carrying a paranormal documentary series license, it features real people digitized... horribly. The backgrounds are generally well done, the hidden object scenes aren't an eyesore (most of the time). So that's a plus. Some effort was put into the surroundings, some details etc., and it can look really good here & there, but the story that, while it contains an somewhat interesting background, degenerates into nonsense every time in every other dialogue.

It packs some meat for the genre, what with 5 hours (305 minutes, including menu time & dunno, watching credits) it took me to finish both the main game and the Collector's Edition mission, and it doesn't exactly turn you away with the story, but there will be groans.

The puzzles are oversimplified and nothing new to the genre - there's maybe one that requires you to actually think about what you're doing for a second - and those incapable of getting it (how?!) can just skip it. Go them. In most of them, the only variety you see is graphical. They actually advertise this as "fast-paced" - which basically translates to easy to solve.

Ah, dunno, it has big pluses for the genre - most aspects of it aren't half-♥♥♥♥♥ for example (though not all), and you can see actual care put into it here & there, but it's far, faaar from perfect. If you're a lover of the genre (hm) and can grab it on sale/in a bundle, get it. For 10$ normal price, it's a No.

My attention was brought to this game while it was still trying to get through Steam Greenlight and was offering free keys to users willing to vote. Now the game is up, and while me and many other users are still awaiting the promised keys, this game appeared in a bundle, so I've picked it up there so I can play and review the game for all those who are still waiting.

StoryAs someone who doesn't watch television, my knowledge of this was minimal until I looked it up for my review. The knowledge that the series was supposed to be reality TV just makes this so much worse. Anyway, this game has the team, along with you, a new guy who doesn't receive a name, go to see someone about some recently strangeness at the site of a Civil War battle. This really was a weak point of the game, and given I know now of the 'reality TV' series, I can only face palm at the thought that it would be so poor as well.

PresentationExpressionless faces and emotionless voices. This was so bad. The characters from the TV show have some poor caricatures, most of which don't closely match the original characters. Still, they aren't so bad you couldn't match them to a photo. The fact that the faces are never changing, no matter the current events, well, that is less forgivable. The main character just has a creepy stare that never changes through the game, and the rest aren't much better. I've been informed that the voice acting isn't from the original actors either, which doesn't bother me as I've never watched it, but the poor quality of it certainly does. Little emotion to it, and bad all round.

At least once you ignore the characters, the rest is at the expected level of quality for a hidden objects games. Items are clear, but don't stand out, which is what you would want from the genre. Nothing special to mention, but no more complaints from this section.

ControlsPurely point and click with the mouse. The only problem here was picking up an item to use on the same screen, as where you would expect the pointer to be isn't always correct, resulting in trying to guess the correct positioning to continue on.

GameplayWith a hidden object game, there isn't a lot to the gameplay. A number of rooms to look through, finding hidden object puzzles, logic puzzles and items for solving the logic puzzles. In two of these, the game is fine. Hidden object puzzles went as expected, even if it doesn't bring anything special to the table. Locating items for the other puzzles is also simple enough.

The logic puzzles, here there are some more problems to add to the list of flaws. Some of these are quite alright, while some of them seem to have no logic to them, just attempting everything until it works. One early puzzle was to get the electricity working by replacing fuses. You have several empty slots and several coloured fuses. The slots weren't marked in any way that I could see, you just tried each fuse until a small light lit up, then moved to the next. That isn't any sort of puzzle, just random guessing. If there was a logical solution, it wasn't visible to me. There were several others handled just as poorly.

LifespanThis game is quite short, being under 5 hours to beat both the original campaign and the bonus content unlocked after that, though that is an acceptable length for the genre. There are also 20 achievements, but most if not all will be unlocked the first time around. There are some difficulty settings but this only effects what level of hints you will receive during the game, something I never used myself. Chances are you won't bother with this game once you have completed it the first time.

ClosingOverall, this game really isn't worth a purchase, at least not at the asking price. There are many better games available capable of testing both your eyes and your mind, without inflicting the problems mentioned.

Well it is not bad, in that I completed it and didn't feel ripped off, there weren't any technical issues. However there are many other similar and better games on Steam that I wouldn't recommend this one unless you are starting to exhaust Steam's catalogue of hidden object games.

It is not scary, there are a couple of jump scares but they don't really affect the scariness of the game. However I did feel uncomfortable playing this game for the following reasons.

The art work in general is very good. However the character animation during dialogue is really uncanny as it is just large blinking eyes and in the group scene at the beginning strange head tilts.

The characters motivation is a bit off, you play as the newest member of the paranormal investigation group, but you are given all of the equipment during the game and sent off to do almost all of the work, so you end up wanting to tell the other members of the team to get up of their backsides and do something. I would understand if you were split from the group or there was some story dynamic to make you do it, but there isn’t. An early example is that you have to answer the phone in the back of the car on the way there, even though you are in the front passenger seat and there are four people in the back who are nearer the phone, and are more likely to know the person on the other end. Assembling an electrical item with the technical expert next to you, because he cannot be bothered? It gets worse.

Hidden Object Scenes, not too difficult to implement you would think, but these are the most annoying I have ever played. Using synonyms is ok, half hiding objects are ok, but most of the scenes have objects which require multiple actions to find. Which is fine but there are a lot of them. I should mention that the hidden objects appear to be the same in subsequent play throughs. Normally I would expect a scene to have 12-15 hidden objects selected out of database of a greater number of possible objects, sometimes they always include a particular object needed to advance the plot, but there is usually some variation, in this game there isn't any. This is made worse because even when you know two objects work together clicking on one with the other is difficult due to the detection of the game engine, if often doesn’t detect the click unless you click a certain part of the object but this seems to vary, and not in a predictable or intelligent way.

The first hidden object scene contains 4 objects out of 12 which require multiple actions; the highest appears to be 6 out of 12. Some of the solutions are nonsensical. It is almost as bad as the famous puzzle in one of the Gabriel Knight games that requires you to place tape over a hole in a fence to chase a cat through, such that hair is stuck to the tape, which you then use to make a fake moustache to disguise yourself as a character that doesn’t have a moustache.

This followed through into the other puzzles, melt that substance with a melting point over 1000 degrees C on a campfire ok. Go to great lengths to get a source of light, even though there is an electric work light only feet away etc.

Gameplay aside I felt uncomfortable playing the game for three main reasons.

1) The game requires you to vandalise and steal items during you investigation at times when there is no urgency. If the game required me to steal a first aid kit to help someone who was dying, I would say fair enough, or break a car window to retrieve a phone to call for the police, well they can just bill me for the window.

However the game requires me to steal and cause damage at times in the game when as far as the group is concerned, no one is in immediate danger, or the only reason to break the law is for the benefit of our investigation. Randomly destroy and damage Native American artefacts for no reason because later on you will just happen to need them, take whatever you want even though the owners are not far away, because well who cares.

2) Health and safety, running into a burning building to rescue someone, dangerous but necessary. But don't worry; you won’t be doing anything like that.

Instead:

Instead thrill in the danger of lighting candles so you can see to fill a gas tank, because someone cannot be bothered to go back to the car and get a torch.

Damage a building water supply and leave it leaking in a room with the electricity switch on, to clean a mirror to see something in the reflection which you would see by just turning around.

3) Native Americans, I don't know much about Native American culture, however it is featured and plays a prominent part of the game. But it all seems very stereotypical, dream catchers - check, Indians wearing fringed buckskin - check, big head dresses - check, totem poles - check. Everything from old cowboy films before laws were brought in to stop white people in makeup playing Native Americans - check. I doubt that all of the Native American symbolism used is genuine, and even with the genuine items, I doubt that any one nation included all of these elements. It would have been less of a problem in a more fantastic setting, but the associated TV show is delivered as a documentary, and the game is set in a real world setting. It made me cringe and I am a white Englishman, so I expect it would really upset actual Native Americans. I just felt that it was all a bit racist, and apart from holding my hand up and saying "How", it couldn't have gotten anymore unpleasant.

So I would in closing say, the game is not terrible, but almost all of the hidden object games on Steam are better. It is really only for fans of the TV show. Go play something by Artifex Mundi (Developed not just distributed by.) and you will have a better experience for a bit less money.

I'm gonna be completely honest here, I hated this game, and this is coming from someone who enjoys hidden object games quite a bit. This review will be based on the game's merits regardless of the fact that I received it free, as I think that would be unfair to anyone looking to purchase it.

Let me first state that I am not a fan of the premise...at...all. I've never watched the show, but even so, the whole paranormal investigator thing is so hokey and contrived that it right off the bat turned me off. Despite the story, I was willing to give the game a chance focusing on the gameplay; it's not as if HOGs have the greatest narratives in gaming anyway, and it's usually the artwork, atmosphere and gameplay that keeps me entertained.

In all honesty, the artwork is pretty decent, at least the non-character graphics. They're pretty much par for the course in the genre and are pleasant enough to look at. The character models though, boy...again, I haven't watched the show, but I found the characters' emotionless stares far more creepy than anything the ghosts toss at you. And the somewhat monotone voice acting doesn't help them either.

The gameplay in the adventure portions was average, nothing I haven't seen before. The puzzles were OK, again, nothing I haven't seen before, but mildly stimulating all the same. The hidden object scenes, though, I grit my teeth even thinking about them. It's kind of hard to mess these up, but they managed to do it here. For one, there are way too many multi-action items; 2-3 per scene is usually pretty good, but later in the game nearly half of the items in each scene require 2-3 steps to clear. Ok, no big deal...but some of the actions are so illogical, I don't know how they expected people to figure them out without either clicking on everything like crazy or taking the easy route and using the help button, which I usually avoid at all costs but used more times than I can count because I just didn't have to patience for this game. Other items were what I would consider deceptively hidden, which is something I will always criticize as an artificial means of adding difficulty. The best hidden object scenes utilize clever synonyms and unique word usage to add difficulty as well as help improve vocabulary, but that's rarely the case here. And I haven't even mentioned the buggy cursor that wouldn't select/pick up certain items without clicking 20+ times trying to find the right pixel to trigger...

Bottom line, the gameplay was not enough to make up for the stinker of a premise/story. Folks, there are a LOT better hidden object games out there to spend your money on. I would advise avoiding this one unless you're a rabid fan of the TV show and need a fix or end up getting it in a bundle.

TBH, I used to watch this TV show for amusement... the 22 minute per episode format was always edited so that each episode fit as many of the "token things associated with the paranormal" as it could into that small timeframe. There were spiritboards, cemetaries under the properties, demonic possessions, EVPs, thermal readings, exorcisms, etc. Everything that one associates with the paranormal from mythology to spirtuality to gadgetry... all crammed into each 22 minute episode.

This game is a lot like that... it's somewhat short (much longer than 22 minutes) and you will experience all of the typical stuff you associate with paranormal research and especially with the show Paranormal State.

SPOILERS:

At the center is Native American lore, wrapped around the story of ghosts of forbidden lovers, in the midst of a demonic possession (see, I told you this title was like the TV show with a bunch of stuff packed in)... and you can just use your imagination to go from there... you will use dowsing rods, spirit boards, EVP recorders, thermal imaging... all of it... to save the day for the Paranormal State crew.

It's mildly entertaining, but don't expect much unless you find amusement of whatever sort in the TV show.

Complaint: No Chip Coffey in the game.Highlight: Upon game launch, Ryan Buells eyes blinking creepily at you.

Paranormal State Poison Spring is a hidden object game about a paranormal case, mixed with some point-and-clicking. It isn't scary; it's meant to be played as a casual game. And by now we've played hundreds of these games already, right ? So... the big question: does this bring anything new to the table ? I'm sorry to say that the answer is no.

If you want to play something scary try a true survival horror game and if you want something casual try one or more of the hundreds and hundreds of titles already available. New ones get added on a weekly basis these days.

Nice H.O.G game,I am a BIg fan of H.O.G. games ,And this one is very good,The music is amazing, atmosphere amazing also.The BEST part is the story is just so very good and fan.For now i can't find any problem whit the game .10/10